Iredell County
Statesville and Iredell County
Before Iredell County was a place people commuted through, it was the edge of the map: a wagon road, a creek numbered by how far it lay from Salisbury, and a fort built because the frontier was not safe.
The Great Wagon Road
The Great Wagon Road ran from Philadelphia through Gettysburg and Hagerstown to Winchester, down the Shenandoah Valley to Roanoke, and on into the Carolinas and Georgia. In North Carolina it entered near present-day Stokes County and passed through Walnut Cove, Germanton, Winston-Salem, Salisbury and Charlotte. It had begun as a Native American hunting, trade and war trail known as the Warrior’s Path.
From the 1750s tens of thousands of German and Scots-Irish immigrants came down it into the western Piedmont. Scots-Irish Presbyterians and German Lutherans began settling around what is now Statesville in 1753. During the Revolution the road was the key supply line to American resistance in the western colonies. That is the same migration described in the Catawba River before the dams.
Fort Dobbs
In March 1756 the royal governor Arthur Dobbs approved £1,000 sterling for a defensive fortress in the Catawba valley. Colonel Hugh Waddell commanded the frontier company of fifty men that built and garrisoned it, and the fort took the governor’s name. An inspection that year recorded it at fifty-three feet by forty, with walls narrowing from sixteen inches to six, over three floors.
The only recorded attack came in February 1760 from a Cherokee force of at least seventy warriors and was repelled; casualties were light on both sides. Sources differ on the exact date of the attack and on when the fort was abandoned. Excavations began in 1967 and confirmed the site the following year, revealing post-hole foundations, a moat and evidence of a palisade. It was listed on the National Register on September 15, 1970, became a state historic site in 1976, and a reconstructed fort opened to the public on September 21, 2019. It is North Carolina’s only state historic site connected with the French and Indian War.
County and county seat
Iredell County was formed in 1788 out of Rowan County and named for James Iredell, who lived from 1751 to 1799. Born in England, he was appointed to the superior court in 1777, served as attorney general of North Carolina from 1779 to 1782, worked for ratification of the Constitution, and was appointed to the United States Supreme Court by George Washington.
Statesville was established as the county seat in 1789 by act of the legislature. The settlement had been the Fourth Creek Congregation — the fourth creek west of Salisbury. Governor Zebulon Vance was living in a house in Statesville at the end of the Civil War.
The railroad
The railroad reached Iredell County in 1858 and set off a period of growth. The Western North Carolina Railroad was built that year as an extension of the North Carolina Railroad running from Salisbury toward Morganton and eventually Asheville. The Atlantic, Tennessee and Ohio Railroad followed, its 45-mile Charlotte to Statesville line completed in 1860 — the same line that made Huntersville, Davidson and Mooresville possible. The Confederate government tore it up in 1863 for the Piedmont Railroad and it reopened on June 22, 1871.
The herb trade
The most unexpected chapter in Statesville’s history is botanical. David and Isaac Wallace, German-Jewish immigrants who had anglicized Wallach, opened a mercantile house at Meeting and Walnut streets in 1859. The state highway marker dates the herbarium itself to 1871 and calls it a world-renowned supplier of medicinal herbs, barks, berries and roots.
They partnered with the botanist Mordecai E. Hyams, born in Charleston, who ran collecting expeditions through Appalachia and built a network of pickers and shopkeepers across the western counties whom he trained in identification and preparation. By 1890 the operation handled more than two thousand varieties, its Botanic Depot exceeded 40,000 square feet, it supplied over a hundred distilleries and pharmaceutical factories, and it shipped ginseng to China by the ton. It took gold medals at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876 and the Paris Exposition of 1878, and exhibited at the Chicago and St. Louis world’s fairs.
Iredell today
Iredell County covers about 574 square miles and counted 186,693 people in 2020. Statesville itself was 28,419. Mooresville, at 50,193, is now the largest municipality in the county, which is a reversal of the historic order and a direct consequence of Lake Norman and Interstate 77.
For anyone with a family law matter, the practical point is that Iredell is a single judicial county with its courthouse in Statesville. If you live in Mooresville, that is where your case is heard, whatever your Charlotte mailing habits suggest.
Iredell County, year by year
Statesville was a frontier garrison before it was a county seat, and a world center of the medicinal herb trade before it was anything else people remember.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1753 | Scots-Irish Presbyterians and German Lutherans settle around what becomes the Fourth Creek Congregation |
| 1756 | Fort Dobbs is built under Colonel Hugh Waddell, who commanded a frontier company of fifty men; it is named for the royal governor, Arthur Dobbs |
| 1760 | The fort’s only recorded attack, by a Cherokee force of at least seventy, on the night of February 26–27 |
| 1788 | Iredell County is formed from Rowan County, named for James Iredell, later a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court |
| 1789 | Statesville is established as the county seat by act of the legislature |
| 1852 | Concord Presbyterian Female College, the ancestor of Mitchell Community College, is founded downtown |
| 1858 | The railroad reaches Statesville |
| 1859 | David and Isaac Wallace open a mercantile house at Meeting and Walnut streets |
| 1871 | The Wallace Brothers herbarium proper is established, with the botanist Mordecai Hyams as botanical manager |
| 1890 | The operation handles more than 2,000 varieties of herbs, barks, berries and roots, out of a depot of more than 40,000 square feet, supplying over a hundred distilleries and pharmaceutical factories and shipping ginseng to China by the ton |
| 1895 | The company goes bankrupt and is rescued by a New York investor; the brothers stay on as employees and lose control |
| 1970 | Fort Dobbs is listed on the National Register on September 15 |
| 2019 | The reconstructed fort opens to the public on September 21 |
Two corrections worth making, because both errors are common. Fort Dobbs’s abandonment is given variously as 1762, 1764 and 1766, and none of the three can be settled from the sources, so this article says only that it was given up in the mid-1760s. And one state encyclopedia says Lake Norman has 520 miles of shoreline within Iredell County; 520 miles is the whole lake across four counties.
Frequently asked questions
When was Iredell County formed?
In 1788, out of Rowan County. It is named for James Iredell, attorney general of North Carolina during the Revolution and later a US Supreme Court justice.
What was Statesville called before?
The Fourth Creek Congregation, named for the fourth creek west of Salisbury. It became Statesville when it was made the county seat in 1789.
What is Fort Dobbs?
A frontier fort approved in 1756 and built by Colonel Hugh Waddell’s company. It is North Carolina’s only state historic site associated with the French and Indian War; a reconstruction opened in 2019.
What was the Wallace Brothers Herbarium?
A Statesville business, established by Jewish immigrants and dated by the state marker to 1871, that became a world supplier of medicinal herbs, barks and roots and shipped ginseng to China by the ton.
Where are Iredell County family cases heard?
In Statesville, the county seat. That includes cases from Mooresville and Troutman.
Sources for this article
Filing in Iredell County
Mooresville, Troutman and Statesville cases are heard at the Iredell County courthouse. Adkins Law practices there and in Mecklenburg, and can tell you which one applies before you file.
Adkins Law, PLLC · 9620 Sherrill Estates Road, Huntersville, NC 28078
Keep reading
This article is local history, offered for general interest. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Historical accounts are drawn from the sources listed above; where sources disagree, that is noted in the text. For advice about your own situation, speak with a licensed North Carolina attorney.